National Heroes
by KH2083
Summary: The adventures of the old government team of mutants - Freedom Force
1. Chapter 1

**National Heroes**

World: Marvel/ X-Men

Time: Before Fall of Mutants

Characters: Freedom Force

**Prologue**

A large group of people made up of the police, journalists and ordinary gawkers gathered in front of the well known, expensive restaurant in New York City. The entry to the building was crammed with police vans, including an armoured vehicle of the anti-terrorist unit. All sounds of the city were deafened by loud conversations, howling of alarms of ambulances and police cars and the whirr of the helicopter soaring above the city. The reporters form TV stations and radio spread one announcement for the world: the city had been attacked by mutants terrorists once again. Without any clarification of the cause, or any information about the demand criminals had for authorities, only one word was handed over: the life has shown once again that mutants were danger for the ordinary citizens and it was high time somebody decided how to solve this problem once and for all. This time the unknown man barged to one of the most expensive restaurants and using only strength of his mind he enslaved and imprisoned all guests and employees. He wanted the government to hear him out and stop working on the mutant registration act and revealed the information about the Widewake project to the public opinion. One of the leaders of the anti-terrorist squad arrived in his own Hammer. He was the middle aged man, balding, he was wearing grey suit. He came to the official dressed in the black costume of the special unit.

"And how is our Alpha operation proceeding, Mr. Scott?" He asked lighting a cigarette.

"It was a total failure, without having the information on the opponent we screwed this action up!" "Mutant, or not... you're trained to fight even with the Hulk, for Christ's sake!" The man became nervous.

"The trouble is that the Hulk isn't telepath but this psycho inside is and he's really good, our boys had no chances without the protection".

"Are they..."

"No, no... we didn't have such fortune. The son of a bitch simply enslaved their minds. Now they're his protection. Each of my 22 boys protecting him, do you understand?" The policeman excused himself. "Indeed you really screwed it up... what remains for us?"

"Not very much, we can try the negotiation, but he's only chatting about the fact that he wants to show his cause to the world and tell public opinion about the mutant registration act. We don't have any contact with him".

"And hostages, safe?" The man asked with anxiety.

"The same as our boys, zombie controlled by the son of a bitch..."

"There is one option, Omega..."

"Exactly. They'll be here soon".

"Goddammit! We must rely on frigging mutants. Again..." The person didn't hide his dislike for the homo superior.

"It's better for me. Let them settle it between themselves".

"You are right. Let these sons of a bitch kill each other".

The people standing in front of the building split up in a hurry seeing the arriving government helicopter. After a moment the machine touched down in the middle of the street raising clouds of dust all around. The woman with blonde hair dressed in the blue costume came out of it. She ran up to the chief constable and the commander of the anti-terrorist squad standing near. She showed them some documents.

"I'm Val Cooper. You can take your people home. Freedom Force is taking over this operation".

"With pleasure. I'm giving you this shat mutant back". The man in the suit announced.

"Mystique. You can start." Val said to the microphone pinned to her clothes.

The restaurant was very elegant inside. Tables arenged with even rows were covered with expensive, white tablecloths. Unfinished meals and opened bottles with the most expensive, branded alcohol lay on some of them. Replicas of famous Greek sculptures were placed here and there and gilded candelabra hung from the ceiling. Guests of the restaurant and the service sat together under one of walls, looking straight ahead with lifeless eyesight. Controlled telepathically police officers from the anti-terrorist unit walked about the restaurant, guarding so that none of hostages breaks free from the trance. The man guilty for everything what happened around sat carefree at one of tables sipping the champagne. He had grey hair and he was dressed in white suit and black tie. He was looking at his living dummies smiling ominously. Alcohol in his glass trembled strangely. After a moment the mutant worked out that all glassware as well as all panes was vibrating. He heard that strange alarming sounds were pursuing from the kitchen's backdoor. He looked at three policemen standing closest. Their eyes, sticking out from under balaclavas, lighted for a split second with white light and everyone of them headed to the backroom. They crossed the door cautiously plunging into the darkness prevailing in the room. Walls shuddered more and more intensively and many different objects fell from shelves. At one point, the floor opened expelling scraps of concrete and kilogrames of dirty mud. A man dressed into blue costume, with the face covered by the helmet emegred from the hole. Avalanche raised his hands and mass of earth and concrete split before him like sea waves.. Controlled policemen pointed their rifles at him and started shooting. The mutant covered himself by building the wall from stones and the soil. When the curtain of dust fell, it turned out that Avalanche's companion entered through the hole in the floor, it was large, sweaty fat person in black dress resembling the body – Blob. He smiled and threw the weapon off policemen's hands with one blow of his chubby hands. When people were defenceless, Blob knocked them out one after the other. The grey haired mutant sensed that his puppets had lost consciousness. He became nervous. The moment of his inattention was used by other Freedom Force members. Somebody ran into the restaurant, he was extremaly fast, he seemed to be only a streak of light for all gathered. All remaining anti-terrorists were disarmed by him. Super Sabre - the older, slim man in the blue costume with the hat of the pilot on his head smiled. The next mutant entered premises: Pyro in red and yellow costume with the flame thrower in his hands. He created large monster from the fire and sent it toward the grey haired terrorist. Hostages controlled by him telepathically looked at the rapidly raging flames with fear. The man only smiled. He took over the control over Pyro, Super Sabre as well as over Blob and Avalanche who at that very moment appeared in the restaurant with just one thought. Satisfied from his victory he decided to send mutants ahead of the building so that they make the slaughter of people gathered there. In the same time the grey haired woman with six arms appeared in the flash of the light. Looking defiantly at the criminal she began the dance strange looking dancing arrangement of steps, by which the woman expressed her preternatural abilities from the borderland of the magic. Spiral was a riddle even for other members of Freedom Force, nobody knew what was the limit of her abilities, neither how and where she acquired them. Noboby knew whether the condition of the mental health of the woman was stable enough to trust her and the majority of persons knowing her thought that it wasn't. The magic of Spiral caused that the man had lost control of mutants, policemen and people who sat on the second end of the room paralysed with fear. Some fat woman shouted squeakily something to her husband. Six-armed woman noticed her, she didn't like something in her behavior. She took the sword out of the scabbard and headed in her direction. Pyro with Avalanche blocked her path.

"I don't like something in her eyesight! Get out of the way!" Spiral shouted.

"We're supposed to be the good ones! Did you forget?" Pyro said.

"I committed myself to help you only up to the moment when I cease to need it. Perhaps this moment came now?" The woman announced.

"You're chatting with each other, and our target is escaping!" Blob announced pointing at the escaping terrorist. The man ran up to the backdoor. He was certain, that when he was apart from the building he would be able to take control over persons from the crowd. He opened the rear exit from the house with a fast move and he ran into the street submerged in the shadow. Two women waited for him at second end of the alley. Mystique with blue skin and yellow eyes and Destiny dressed in blue tunic and the golden mask on the face.

"Raven, he will approach." Masked woman announced to her companion.

"Julia! Prepare!" Mystique shouted.

Shinning yellow web spread out between two opposite buildings surrounding the alley appeared before the escaping criminal. The man fell into it and he could not free himself from it. The blonde girl in the black and white costume with big white spider on the web loomed from darkness into the view. "He caught himself into the web!" She announced. Mystique came up to the victim. Destiny remained in the darkness.

"Good work Julia. And you... I'm the government agent and my group is formed to catch mutants dangerous to this country, as you are. You're under arrest, everything what you will say can be used against you..."

"Traitors of your own race!" The man screamed looking at women with hate. Raven punched him in the face.

"You understand nothing... you're a traitor! It's not important how many own brothers you will betray for this government, you will end up in the camp in Nevada in the end... you and your stupid helpers!" The grey mutant screamed.

"In Nevada? What camp are you talking about?"

"Mystique! Turn away from there! Immediately!" Destiny yelled.

"What do you mean Irene?" The surprised woman asked. Julia Carpenter pushed her fried to the wall and in the same moment a sound of the shot from firearms sounded in the air. After a moment a bloodstain appeared on the shirt of the man and he lost consciousness. Mystique ran toward the exit from the alley. She took the gun out and started looking around. Unfortunately she noticed nobody, he disappeared in the crowd gathered on the street. She wasn't also able to listen to his steps through the prevailing noise. Angry, she came back to the group. Spider Woman kneeled by the seriously injured man. Raven looked questioningly at him.

"He lives, but he's very weak. I call the emergency, they will be here right away".

"Irene..." She turned to the masked woman.

"Could you see his face? The vision showed you who shot?"

"Unfortunately no, I saw only the very fact of shooting and the fact that you could be in danger Raven. When I tried to see the face of the perpetrator, I could see only a fog enveloping it..."

"Thanks for saving my life, Irene". The mission of the group ended with the defeat leaving more questions than replies.


	2. Chapter 2

**National Heroes**

**Chapter**** II: Old acquaintances**

In the small bar, filled up with the semi-darkness and darkened by the smoke rising from cigarettes belonging to regular customers, two men were sitting at the little table opposite to the dirty window. They talked with each other in a whispering voice, looked around every couple of minutes as if they they expected somebody or they were afraid of some person, they gazed at the bald bartender who was observing them with bored eyes.

"What do you think, will he come here?" The one of men, the guy with the grey moustache asked. "He wouldn't miss such a chance." His ginger companion replied.

"Even if he comes here, aren't you afraid that he'll blow a whistle on us? After all now he's a national hero... super hero..."

"I've known him for a long time, much longer than you... I know why he had joined this team very well, for money and only for money. The colorful costume won't change the real nature of a man."

"Do you claim that he's still one of us?" The man with a big moustache asked.

"Precisely, and thanks to the fact that he's also with them, our job will be much simpler." Two men noticed that somebody huge like a mountain was bending over them. His large shadow fell on the table with drinks and wall behind it. As it turned out, the shadow belonged to Frederick Dukes, known as the Blob. The fat man was dressed in the brown coat and he had the hat on his head, he didn't want to be recognized and associated with the government's group of mutants by anybody. He settled on two free chairs by the table with a great effort.

"Talk about this job!" He spoke striving for the glass with vodka.

Two women stood opposite to each other, both of them were attentively fixing their eyes on faces expressing impatience and irritation by their mutual behavior. Val Cooper, leaning against the wooden desk placed in the middle of the study, looked at the blue skinned mutant Mystique. Relationship of women were never warm, but it became even worse after the action against the mutant terrorist from the restaurant. Raven wanted from Val explanations, her knowledge about the mutant, the assault on his life and what was the meaning of what he told her a short time before he had lost consciousness. Cooper knew that avoiding the answer, she played with the bomb which could explode straight at her face at any time.

"Val, you don't want to make enemies from us you know it, very well. I ask you to answer a few questions. Who ordered to shoot this mutant dead?" Raven asked.

"I don't know. The anti-terrorist team was sent away after your group had appeared at the restaurant." The woman answered.

"What is happening in Nevada? Which camp did he talk about?"

"I don't know! He was a terrorist, man mentally unstable! I don't understand how such a rational person as you can believe in the gibbering of some fanatic!"

"Val, you know well that I'll check one way or another, whether what he said is in fact the truth. If this turns out to be true and you knew something about it, you won't find a place in the sun in which you could hide from me."

"Are you threatening me, Raven? Do you want me to send everyone of you to the prison?"

"If you send me there, the X-Men and X-Factor will get the detailed information about what happened yesterday's night. You won't escape responsibility."

"Raven, I'm telling you again that I don't have a clue what this mutant chatted about! I personally think that it was gibberish, but even if he spoke the truth, even I don't have suitable clearance to know about every project which is being carried out by the government of this country!"

"Val, I believe you... at least at the moment..." Mystique replied moving away from the desk. The blonde also calmed down sitting down on the chair.

"Will I be able to talk with this terrorist?" Raven asked.

"Not now. I'm being informed about his state of health all the time. He still didn't regain consciousness."

"Aren't you afraid that somebody can try to kill him again?"

"My people are looking after him twenty-four hours a day. Even a mouse couldn't get through."

"Are you so naive? Everyone can be bribed..." Val didn't answer mutant woman's words. -

"I'll send somebody from Freedom Force there. I order he or she to stop everyone who will try to approach this man, using all available means of course."

"And are you so naive that you trust criminals?" The blonde asked rising from her armchair.

"They have no business in killing one of their own."

"Everyone can be bribed, as you said a moment ago."

"A war is hanging over the horizon and I and my people know very well whose side we'll choose. You'll do the right thing if you're able to choose the right one when the time comes." Mystique left the office leaving her boss alone in a total silence. On the corridor, Raven met her friend, Destiny, wearing the long blue robe and the golden mask on the face.

"And how did the conversation go?" Irene asked.

"Must you really ask? I'm sure you predicted her response."

"Maybe yes or maybe no. I would like to hear the opinion from you."

"She tried to convince me that she didn't have a clue who is responsible for the attack on the mutant and she says that she knows nothing about what is happening in Nevada. I'm not able to tell whether she told the truth or not. Perhaps she's just an excellent actress. I won't leave it on its own, I'll find this place, if it exists and I raze it to the ground."

"You risk a lot, Raven. If you do it, fight against the government, you'll automatically come back to the status of the terrorist, both you and I and all Freedom Force members. The illusion of National Heroes will splatter like a soap bubble."

"What is it now? An illusion, ephemera which will end sooner or later." Raven interjected.

"And our real nature will come to light, if we're pinned down and have to fight over our surviving." She gave her thought after a moment.

"Spiral is on the third floor, in the exercise room". Destiny informed, knowing what her companion had wanted to ask.

"Thank you, Irene." Mystique headed in the direction of the door to the lift.

In the night Freedom Force celebrated their victory over the terrorist telepath in the nearby bar. Pyro and Avalanche drank alcohol and played around with women who were sent by the employer of the team, in order to relieve their stress associated with the service, Blob ate meat dishes and waiters could not keep up with bringing him tastier and tastier delicacies. Trio of veterans: Crimson Commando, Super Sabre and Stonewall sat by one table dwelling on old times. The women from the team, Spider Woman, Spirals or Mystique and Destiny were not present, they decided to chase off the time differently and in the completely different place.

"Come to us Dukes!" Pyro cried out looking at the fat bulk of Blob.

"Right! Move your ass, you fatso, or else we'll take all gals for ourselves!" Avalanche added embracing the dyed blonde sitting on his knees.

"Get lost! I'm busy!" Fred replied striving for the next plate.

"If you prefer the food over girls it's your choice! More for us!" Saint-John shouted.

"We're going girls!" Dominikos said, removing the harlot girl from his knees.

"You're going nowhere! We have the emergency!" A woman's voice came from the ceiling. All mutants and women keeping them company looked ahead. They noticed Spider Woman sitting on the ceiling. Julia was dressed in her costume and her eyes expressed the readiness to act.

"And remember to change on the way to the conference room!"

Almost all Freedom Force members gathered around a round table and Val Cooper geared herself up to pass on all information concerning their new task. An image portraying the person dressed in the red armor, terrorizing the city centre appeared on the television monitor. Woman not waiting too long, started preparing the team for the mission.

"What you see is happening now, therefore I don't have a time for all details. Some maniac came into the possession of the armor belonging at one time to professor Vanko, the Soviet scientist, more known as Crimson Dynamo. As can be seen, he made some alteration in it making it far more dangerous than it was in its original state. The madman is exposing the entire district to danger and one should as soon as possible neutralize him."

"What does this dim-witted head want?" Pyro asked.

"I don't have detailed information, but his requests are connected with Tony Stark. It does not make any difference for you, you must simply stop him."

"Why must we clean up after Stark? Let him come here and have a word with this madman!" Avalanche said.

"Exactly! Besides Crimson a Dynamo is Iron Man's enemy, why won't the rusted tin can take care of him alone?" Saint-John spoke again.

"We're the group which can react the fastest. Therefore stop chatting and march to the hangar!" Val quickly finished the conversation. Julia came up to Mystique.

"Where is Spiral?" She asked.

"She has other things to do, much more important ones." Raven answered her enigmatically.

Earlier.

Blue skinned mutant stood inside the room plunged in the darkness. Spiral, six-armed stranger from other dimension kept her company. The woman hid her face in the shadow, her long hair were as white as snow.

"I have special job for you, Spiral. You'll be guarding our unconscious mutant so that nobody can approach him even if from a distance of one step. You will stay at the hospital to the moment, when he regains consciousness and then you come back to me so that I can question him precisely about all details concerning Nevada and the camp."

"Am I supposed to look after him? Sit idly and wait until he opens his eyes? I am created to the magic dance rather than being a wooden statue on the bow of the sailing ship." The white-haired woman replied.

"Understand Spiral, I'm sure that you won't be bored and quicker rather than later somebody will appear in order to complete the killing job.

"Can I do everything I want with our uninvited guest?" Spiral asked with the flash in the eye.

"Officially you aren't allowed to hurt him." Raven said.

"But between us, if nobody finds his body... you can do what you want provided that you learn some information from him earlier." She added after a moment.

"In that case, I start waiting for the game and hunting." Spiral announced starting her traditional dance before the teleportation. She disappeared from the room in the bright lighting opening the hole in the time-space before herself.

The airship carrying Freedom Force members arrived in place which, according to notifications of police, television and Val Cooper informers, was terrorized by the man in the Crimson Dynamo armor. The district looked abandoned, because the forces of law managed effectively to lead the part of inhabitants out beyond protective barricades. The airplane pilot left the team on one of roofs, from where they could get to the street unnoticed by the crazy engineer in the Soviet armor. After a few minutes of going down the staircase, mutants came close to their target. They noticed burning shipwrecks of police vans and the destroyed hydrant from which rivulets of water gushed out. Police officers had tried to deal with the armored opponent themselves, but unfortunately it didn't come out. Mystique ordered mutants to stop, since she noticed the red figure emerging from behind the smoking wrecks.

"That's him! Crimson Dynamo." She said.

"We'll take care of him right away!" Avalanche announced.

"We'll finish after a few minutes!" Pyro added.

"Wait!" Destiny tried to stop them simultaneously reaching out in their direction, but none of them listened. Avalanche used his abilities on the road, producing the wave formed of stones, mud and asphalt. He sent his creation in the direction of Crimson Dynamo. The man enclosed in armor noticed danger and he rose into the air.

"Rocket Shoes?" Surprised member of Freedom Force shouted.

"I tried to warn you against what was supposed to happen." Irene quietly spoke.

"Who you are! Stark was supposed to came here, rather than you! I don't have a time for playing with some nobodies!" Dynamo was clearly irritated with the appearance of the group of mutants.

"Are we nobodies! I'll show you!" Pyro turned the flamethrower on and e formed a huge fire hand and tried to catch the criminal. Unfortunately his armor turned out to be too strong, Dynamo easily freed from the grip in the same time rising even higher.

"Now you'll see what it means to disobey my! Stark and nobody else were supposed to appear here!" It was possible to sense growing desperation in the voice of the man. Containers on his back opened and rockets launched from them. Projectiles headed at the people standing behind barricades, policemen, doctors, reporters and ordinary gawkers.

"Now he went too far. We're finishing him off." Mystique announced.

"Spider Woman. Super Sabre, protect the people!" She ordered.

In a few agile moves, Julia Carpenter jumped on the wall of the building next to crowds of people in the direction of which rockets were flying and spread the psionic web out, effectively immobilizing her targets. Super Sabre caught two flying low rockets and hitting them hundreds of times he caused, that they had fallen to the street prematurely, in the place very distant from their original destination. Mystique changed in Tony Stark.

"I'll talk with him for a moment and you must hush him up once and for all." She said to Blob and other members of her team. The woman in the form of Iron Man's civil identity came up to Crimson Dynamo hovering over smoking pile of the scraps of metal.

"You have what you wanted! I'm here, so stop devastating the city. Explain to me who you are and what do you want from me!" She suggested.

The man hiding his face behind the red helmet noticed the mustachioed man and ambivalent emotions appeared in his head. He was pleased that the police had finally heard his demands and gave him the most hated man but on the other side he was possessed by anger to the man.

"Who am I? Don't you remember me? Don't you remember who you dismissed from the position of the chief engineer?"

"No, so many people go through my company who would remember everyone of them?" Mystique provoked the man.

"You destroyed my live and you don't even remember my surname! You piece of rubbish!" Dynamo was thrown off balance. In the same moment, Avalanche, Blob and Stonewall moved close to him from the other side of the street. The former Stark's employee was engrossed so much in a figure of his old boss, that he hadn't spotted their appearance. Dominikos created the wave of street asphalt and he raised the body of Blob on its peak. The fat person, with the huge speed, approached to the fake Soviet superhero who was unaware of the threat.

"I don't remember you, because I've never seen you." Stark said changing back in blue skinned woman.

"What, it is a trick! You.." The assailant tried to say something, but the oily belly of Blob hit him with strength of the ball for demolition. The man in the armor was thrown down and stopped on the hard as a rock body of the other Freedom Force member, Stonewall. The impact was so strong that a few mechanical parts in his carapace were destroyed. He could not move the left hand, or start his rocket boots. Stonewall, not waiting long, aimed his strongest blow at Dynamo's armored face. The madman fell into the psychic web woven by Spider Woman between two buildings, he became immobilized in it losing all will for the fight.

"We've finished! Take this clown, because it's no longer our work." Raven shouted in the direction of police officers from the special division standing behind the barricade.

"We finished him with such an ease! And we aren't sweated. We could beat the Avengers without a problem, right Dukes?" Pyro said.

"Yes..." Blob replied unwillingly.

"And why are you so lost in thought? Stop or else your head will ache!" Pyro added.

"Fuck off..." Dukes snapped leaving the intrusive companion from the team.

Earlier.

In the bar, polluted by the cigarettes and stinking of the drunkenness, three men were talking in a whispers, like afraid of being eavesdropped. The man with a big moustache looked at Dukes' moon like face concealed under the hat, discussing the plan which was born in his head.

"Do you remember how we together did raids a long time ago? We chose places in which banks were protected by one, two old bodyguards and the entire small town had only one police car? The fast raid, the escape and the return to the circus. Nobody tried to check circus performers who were having a show at the moment of our raid."

"Yes. I remember these morons, I pity these poor things!" Blob replied sipping vodka of the sour cherry.

"The city over the city, day after day..." He added.

"These were beautiful times... before damned X-Men, Magneto..." Dukes whispered putting the booze aside to the table.

"But it's already a past which won't return." He completed after a moment.

"You're wrong Fred. We met with you, since we're gathering the entire gang. I have big plans for our common future." Grey man said and a spark of joy appeared in his eyes.

"No way. Now there's too many capes in the country, they'll finish you right after crossing thresholds of the bank." Dukes announced unwillingly.

"I'm not thinking about banks, it's already a past as you stated, Fred." The mustachioed man poured the next glass of vodka for himself and then he continued the conversation.

"I think of something much larger. Something which certainly is worth homo superior hand, dear friend."

"I'm listening." Blob said.

"A lot has happened after our roads had branched. You found your way to the world of colorful dresses and superpowers, you became the terrorist. I also went in many places in which nobody else certainly would like to be. I got to know many people from the very top, I did this and that for them, I got both new friends and their gratitude. I have the access to the information, which well used can provide us the fortune.

"Be fast! I don't feel like hearing the history of your life out!" Dukes was impatient.

"Okay, you became terribly nervous, my friend. The trusted person told me there is a job. White aprons from S.H.I.E.L.D invented some new type of the weapon, next version of your Own Apocalypse. On what principles it is supposed to work, I don't know, but my head would hurt me from thinking about this. My customer offers big money, even for the fragment of this thing. In the perfect state, damaged or even in shreds. It doesn't matter for him."

"Who?"

"A.I.M. Do you know what I'm talking about?"

"What you crammed yourself into again, man! A.I.M.! And do you want capes not to see us? Man! It's as if you painted the great inscription on yourself: Captain America, kick me in the ass!"

"Be calm... the task isn't simple, I admit. But the job is so big that it'll provide us with a life of luxury far where here, far from all captains and other suckers. My other informer, this time from the S.H.I.E.L.D, handed me the accurate route of the transport of this trash from the base to the training ground on the desert. I also know that white aprons will ask somebody from government capes to be their bodyguards. And now you, Freedom Force, you're the ones good from Uncle Sam. Your should just volunteer."

"Did you forget that I'm now standing on the other side? I'm good guy! I won't risk being caught on the theft of this scrap and going to jail for years!"

"And you think that you won't end in the prison after all?" -The ginger man joined the conversation.

"Do you think that they really cleaned your papers after you had caught Magneto? Are you really so naive? They need somebody to do the dirty work for them, catching all mutants and putting them in camps. And if you do it, then what? Will they give you medals and praise from the entire nation? It's not true, they'll lock you up like all other mutants, they'll neutralize you when you stop being needed. If you want to avoid everything of it, this job is a chance for the escape from this country." Blob was silent for a moment thinking about words of the old acquaintance, but then he gave the unequivocal answer.

"I'm coming with you."

Spiral was walking around desolate hospital corridors, looking at the young policeman guarding the access to the room with the seriously injured man, who the team defeated the day before. Mutant woman was dressed up as the nurse, and had hidden two additional pairs of arms not arousing one's suspicions. The woman travelled across the long corridor, listening to sounds reaching her and watching objects, revealed from the semi-darkness by fluorescent lamps fastened to the ceiling which emitted cold, sterile light. The night seemed too quiet to the woman, like the calm before the storm, and the lack of the staff could announce that somebody who shot the mutant could plan his or her further steps. Spiral came into the little room put at the very end of the corridor noticing that somebody else shared the night with her. The young woman with a long blonde hair sat on a chair. She was a nurse on a duty. The girl cheered up seeing Spiral and getting up, she headed to her side.

"I thought that I was alone here... or rather alone with the police." She said looking the woman at the eyes.

"I am only a passer-by in the darkness of the night, I will walk away from here right away." Mutant replied quietly.

"No, no... your company isn't disturbing me... I don't know you... are you new? Which floor are you working on? " The blonde asked.

"I am only on the replacement. I am supposed to look after the patient which came to us yesterday, but I cannot stand the monotony of this place. I am feeling like I was going mad by the noise of the silence and the darkness."

"It's really calm here today... but it's perfect for me. I like nights when completely nothing is happening. Particularly here, where victims of the street fighting come every day." Spiral interested in the conversation with the woman decided to stop by her a little bit longer.

"This silence is like on the graveyard, it is a complete antithesis of the inside of my head in which I can hear shouts of the thousand of condemned souls and I can see changing colors of the kaleidoscope."

"Silence is like cold tables in the dark mortuary, where there is now hope for any change. It's as mute as the arc lamp looking in the stillness at surgeons fighting without a success with the monster killing from the inside. As monotonous as the row of paralytics waiting for the death in metal coffins, buried alive. Mechanical ventilation in the storage of bodies. Concentric circulator of variable pressure. Inhalation, exhalation, inhalation, exhalation... in the artificial rhythm of the machine. Do you feel shivers being an everyday witness of such a hopeless monotony?" The girl didn't know what to answer. Every word of the woman seemed to horrify her more and more.

"I will tell you what really brings shivers. Playing with the life, crossing the fine line between keeping what is natural and improving according to the own will and aesthetics feeling. There are no sanctities and every move is permitted. Come to our beauty farm and spa, we will do you anew!" Seeing euphoria of the white-haired mutant, the young nurse wanted to walk away and find somebody who could help her. She noticed with a terror that the corridor was empty, there were no policemen looking after the patient.

"The accident changed you beyond the recognition? You cannot walk, move, breathe? Nothing simpler, we will give you new limbs, controlled by the central computer joined straight to the mind, the new, armored spine and the spinal cord and a new, biomechanical lungs. We will give you the new skin, which a bullet won't puncture, we will give you eyes seeing in the entire spectrum range and your bones will be covered by liquid adamantium. Get rid of your humanity and become one of us."

"You aren't feeling good.." The nurse whispered. She cursed herself that she had agreed to be a replacement for her friend. Ray she played with her boyfriend and she chat to talk with madwoman. Spiral calmed a little bit, simultaneously noticing that the door of the hospital ward was slightly opened.

"They made up their mind." She said throwing her clothes down. When the girl was reaching for the phone and her eyes were fixed on the body of the Freedom Force member.

"Guards... I'm calling from the third level. We have a trouble... there is a mutant here..." She whispered with an effort. The mysterious man dressed in the dark suit approached the hospital bed in which the unconscious mutant lay. He took out the small bottle filled up with some liquid and the syringe from the pockets. He prepared to give chemical, thanks to which the wounded man would never regained consciousnesses. Spiral opened the door.

"The night is too quiet here, too monotonous, it's probably high time to find a dance partner!" The woman shouted and a bright glow appeared around her body. The frightened assailant ran up to the window and instinctively threw the lethal dose of chemicals out of it.

"Where did she come from?" He said to himself and beating of his heart as well as his breath became faster. He bolted and, to his utter amazement, he ran past the white-haired woman without the smallest effort. Spiral smiled and a pattern of the energy dance which she was supposed to give to the would-be murderer of the man protected by her was drawn in her mind.

"Your mind will become the maze from which there's no escape. It will become the trap into which you will fall by your fear which is devouring your thoughts. And all roads you will choose, will lead to my heart!" The man ran past the young nurse standing in the middle of the corridor. The girl tried to stop him, ask about what was happening around her, but words could not get out of her mouth hushed up by a fear. The agent ran to a stairwell, he tried to take the mobile phone out and to get in touch with his superiors, but he could not find it in pockets. He thought that he had been running for hours, stairs had became more and more steep and winding and walls slithered around him like the dark merry-go-round in ruins of the old funfair. The man looked behind himself, he thought that he had heard the laughter of Spiral behind his head, he felt her breath on his neck.

His own shadow assumed the form of six armed women with long hair curling in the wind. The man opened the door standing before him and quickly entered the room plunged in the darkness simultaneously drawing a gun. His fast breath echoed from invisible walls of the room carrying with itself icy wind. The agent cursed his employers, the crazy woman and all mutants because of whom he was in such a situation. He tried to calm down and to behave as the professional, but strange power in his mind didn't let him. In the same time, Spiral approached the nurse standing in the stillness in the very the centre of the desolate corridor.

"You are going with me. You will be a witness of the transformation of the man into something much more excellent." She said smiling widely. The girl wanted to protest, escape, but she didn't have the slightest chance to do it. The space around Spiral lighted up with a dazzle and she teleported herself and the blonde into unknown.

In the same night.

The telephone shed standing in the dark avenue was lighted with the light of the nearby lamp post which rays refracted on particles of the smoke escaping from a nearby drainage catch pit. A huge, fat man dressed in the long raincoat and the hat stood nearby it. He could not come inside because of his corpulence, but in spite of it he grasped the receiver of the phone tightly. Fred Dukes was calling his old acquaintances, since matters assumed a surprise development, exactly as they foretold him.

"I don't know where you had this information from, but it's exactly the way you said!" The excited man screamed to the receiver.

"Some junk will be moved from the S.H.I.E.L.D. laboratory to some hellhole and Mystique decided that I'm going to protect it! I don't know where you have such connections from you, but I'm impressed!"

"I told you that this work would make us rich."

"When will we arrange meeting for details of our work?"

"There'll be no details. Our next meeting would be too dangerous. We know which way you'll be going and we'll catch you in the most opportune moment. Your task is very straightforward Dukes... you cannot simply let them run away with this scrap. Did you understand?"

"Yeah.." Blob replied.

"Don't be so gloomy. Tomorrow we'll be rich and you'll be able to treat lightly suckers with whom you're working and escape from the world of capes and colorful dresses once and for all."

The black-haired man tightly gripped the gun, looking at some abstract shape concealed somewhere in the darkness, existing perhaps only in his mind. He was ready for the fight, clash with mutant, he was sure that he will react quickly enough and he will kill the woman, even if it would ruin his future career. He didn't try to escape, he knew very well, that he could not hide himself from Spiral. Being in the strange trance, the agent overlooked that he had left the hospital, through the door not used by anybody for years and headed along the dark avenue in the unknown direction. He heard a weird music coming from somewhere, played by the old device, simple and short but endlessly repeating itself, irritating and simultaneously carrying anxiety and feeling of the loneliness. Soon, the opened door of the vacated building above which the shining on blue neon light "Welcome to the Body Shoppe, We'll make and New You!" appeared before man's eyes. A darkened corridor and tens of the doors were behind it. The agent could hear groans coming from the rooms, laughter, giggles and whispered conversations heard in other place and other time on the border between the dream and the real world in the twilight of the morning. A few strange looking persons appeared behind him. Shaven bald women in white aprons, with long nails and masks on faces. One of them, the figure walking on stilts in a long dress forced the man to enter one of rooms. Spiral in white apron and assistants keeping her company awaited the man there. The hypnotized nurse from the hospital was one of them. Strange devices were stored around the woman, arranged in a disarray, in the controlled chaos which only twisted mind of six-armed women could understood. Beds with belts of strapping for patients, lamps emitting lights straight into eyes, hanging cables, pipes and pointer pressure meters looked out of every corner. Deeper into the room, one could see shelves full of analog electronics flashing with colorful lights and containers with physiological liquids. Spiral smiled to the guest, inviting him with gestures of all six arms. The horrified agent tried to point the gun at her, but the iron fist of one of mutant's assistants effectively prevented him from doing it. She kneeled over the man getting up off the floor.

"You are very naughty, very bad... you tried to kill other man and it is a sin... but don't worry, in this place you will be cleansed, here you will be born anew!"

"Whom are you? You witch!" The agent was horrified and hate for all mutants of the world radiated from his eyes.

"Your creator!" Spiral shouted simultaneously exploding with laughter. Assistants of the woman dragged the man toward the operating table above which the large surgeon's robot, with arms having sharp and dangerously looking tools, was hung.

"See his mind! See who we are dealing with! And then make him one of my bodyguards!" Mutant ordered.

"And you look and learn how to help our patients with the new birth!" She added looking straight into the young nurse's eyes. The large device put on the head of poor wretch started to flash with colorful lights and shreds of images appeared on the screen above heads of everyone. Meanwhile, in the completely different place and time, the mysterious man strolled around stone paths of garden full of green bushes trimmed to look like different animals from the real world as well as from the mythology. Leos, horses, large birds, dinosaurs and unicorns were lighted by colorful floodlights standing along the lane. The man was entirely bald, he was wearing the grey suit. Sound of the mobile phone broke silence of the garden. The bald man wasn't in a hurry with answering it, but when the device rang for the third time, he decided to answer it.

"Yes?" He asked.

"Number 13. He didn't come to our meeting place. He must have met trouble!"

"What trouble? The floor was supposed to be empty!"

"Unfortunately, somebody had to be there first! What am I supposed to do?"

"Go away from there as fast as you can. We don't know, who is involved. If it's somebody from capes, like Avengers or Freedom Force, we can have a problem."

"I will deal with the Number 13 personally."

"I understand..."

The bald man turned the phone off before the person on the other side managed to complete the sentence.

"It's a shame to lose such a good person." The man whispered, taking the small box with the button. After pressing it, he returned to the slow walk along the garden avenue. The agent kept against his will in the vicinity of bizarre medical devices shouted as if somebody ripped skin off his body. After a brief lapse, he fell without a consciousness on the white bed sheets.

"What have you done with him!" Spiral shouted at her aids.

"Nothing! We don't know what happened! He should not react this way. He... died..." The bald woman with a broad smile painted on the face tried to explain herself.

"Somebody from the outside... looks like somebody from the outside attacked him." She added after a moment.

"Did he break over barriers of this place? It's a nonsense!" Spiral could not believe words of the woman, but after checking a few monitors in the room she admitted that she was right.

"Reuse everything from his body! He will be useful automaton for the repair work!" She announced heading in the direction of other bed. As it turned out, the man shot during the incident in the restaurant lay in it. His breathing was even and his face was clear, not showing the critical state of man's health. She swept hair aside from her head with one of her six hands.

"What they did with you..." She asked rhetorically. She turned away looking into the eyes of the blonde from the hospital. The girl looked at her with empty eyesight, with the quiet look devoid of the free will.

"Take care of him. Check what is destroying his body." She ordered.

"Don't you worry. At the moment, you cannot use this equipment, but this place will teach you everything what you need. When you become its part, you will stop being a puppet and you will regain your free will, I promise you." She said leaving an operating theatre.

Blob stood on one of corridors of the Freedom Force registered office waiting for the end of the conversation between his boss and the scientist representative belonging to S.H.I.E.L.D. He knew very well, what the topic of the conversation was and he worried all the time thinking about meeting from previous days and the plan of the prototype of the newest weapon's theft. He decided to act and he promised himself that nobody or nothing would be able to change his plans. The door of the study opened slightly and soon few persons came up to the fat mutant: Val Cooper, Mystique, the man in the sunglasses dressed in the black suit and Crimson Commando. Seeing his friend from the team, the Blob was displeased, but he didn't show dissatisfaction.

"Mr. Michels, Let me introduce to you the second agent who will protect your parcel, Dukes Frederick, the Blob." Val Cooper said.

"Good morning." The man replied unwillingly shaking hands with the Blob.

"Good day." Dukes said.

"I'll leave you alone gentlemen so that you can discuss the details of the task awaiting you." Val announced taking Mystique away. Blob, Commando and Michels left the building.

"Do you have some other abilities apart from the fat arsehole?" The man in the suit dared to jibe at the mutant, as soon as two women disappeared from his field of view.

"Do you want to check?" Blob replied clenching his fist and he promised himself, that he will take revenge for this cutting remark as soon as the closest chance appears.

"If I can be totally honest, I don't like that two mutants, including one large and sweaty former thief and thug will be protecting my people and the equipment. Therefore let us shorten all conversations to the minimum and let us do what we are supposed to do as soon as possible. The quicker I will get rid of your company the better."

"Better for you to stop chatting!" Blob became nervous. Commando tried to calm him.

"And why the hell you're going with me? I can protect some scrap myself! Why do I need your company?" Fred was irritated and he felt like use his energy on the colleague.

"For me yours is also unnecessary, Dukes. Mystique appointed both of us therefore shut up, do a job and take your part of the check. We don't have to be friends and sing a song together at the bonfire!" The older mutant answered.

"Enough chatting!" Michels stopped their conversation. As it turned out, mutants reached the helicopter standing on the nearby landing field.

"Get into the machine and read papers carefully! Rest you will learn on the spot!" He added showing the pilot that he can turn the engine on by a hand gesture.

11


	3. Chapter 3

**National Heroes**

**Chapter III: The Trial**

Blob, getting bored with every passing minute, observed scientists dressed in white aprons working with a strange device in the size of the wardrobe, which looked to him as just a heap of welded metal scraps, pipes, mixing of unimportant cables and lights attached in completely random places. Dukes was more and more nervous with long tests, he wanted to start his mission as soon as possible: to carry out both of them: the one which was given to him by Freedom Force's boss as well as the one which he decided to take after the meeting with an old friend. Crimson Commando's participation irritated him very much and in addition it could mean some trouble in the immediate future, during transporting the machinery to the desert. He watched the older man walking about the laboratory room near the technical team carrying all boring tests out. Blob laughed up his sleeve, convincing himself, that his friend from the group wouldn't be an obstacle or a threat for him. Commando approached him, distracting him from his reflections.

"Do you know what this rust heap can be used for?" He asked.

"I'm not having the foggiest idea! You're squirming around these eggheads all the time. Didn't you try to ask?" Blob replied unwillingly.

"I tried. I don't have the top authorization to know details. We don't even know what we will be protecting."

"Because they aren't paying us for the knowledge. Better think how to deliver it in place safely." Fred said angrily.

"It didn't come to your mind that perhaps we will be protecting some murderous weapon? Maybe even against people like of us?" Commando asked showing him the bald man putting the oval container to the interior of the device.

"I don't give a shit about it! I'm doing what they are paying me for!" Blob turned around.

"I'm going to find something to eat! I'll die of starvation before they're through with this scrap!" He replied trying to free himself of the unwanted company.

In the same time, Val Cooper answered the telephone from one of her superiors. Having heard the latest news she paled, not knowing how to behave after listening to such revelations. Disappearing of the wounded mutant from the hospital put her in the awful situation. Personally she promised Mystique that the man would be protected and nobody or nothing would be able to threaten his health or life. She convinced mutant woman to not do anything and let the right people carry out their job. Raven's words turned out to be prophetic, the mutant vanished without a trace. She didn't know how the woman would react to the news, she didn't know whether she was able to stop her from resigning from Freedom Force and returning to terrorist activity. On the other hand, she was afraid that perhaps Raven had started her own agenda and it was her fault that the mutant terrorist was kidnapped. Perhaps somebody from Freedom Force was personally responsible? Perhaps she had already lost the control over such dangerous people. Some nurse also disappeared. The mutant wouldn't be missed by anybody and only a few would learn about his disappearing, but a young, white woman who didn't get back home after a day's work could not remain unnoticed. Val knew that she could not longer hesitate. She entered the room occupied by Mystique. She wanted to have all of these out of her mind. However, in the little room, she didn't find the leader of mutants' group. Instead of her, Destiny was sitting in the room. The woman had an exposed face and her grey hair. The golden mask was on the desk, next to the tea which the woman calmly sipped. In spite of one's blindness, Irene knew exactly who had entered the study as well as what purpose of her visit was.

"Where is Raven?" Val asked.

"Not here. She is on her mission." Destiny replied.

"What mission?" Val was surprised. She asked questions not thinking even for the minute.

"Your mission, she is carrying your order out. Don't you remember?" Irene announced. Val thought for a moment, clutched her head and laughed.

"Indeed... because of all the confusion I completely forgot about it. " She said to herself and after a moment she turned to the woman.

"Irene, this man disappeared last night from the hospital. There are no witnesses. What's worse..."

"A young woman who worked at that hospital disappeared also." Destiny completed her sentence. Val quickly realized that she could not surprise the psychic.

"Do you know something more? Do you know who was involved?" She asked with a hope for any clue.

"I know, that they both disappeared. I am not able to see anything more."

" You don't know in what direction they were taken away? Who was responsible? " Val didn't give up.

Irene got up from a chair, and then carried her statement on.

"I didn't say that they had been taken away anywhere at all, because they weren't taken away. It happened precisely the way I said. They disappeared."

"Did they disappear? From where?" Val looked into blind eyes of the older woman.

"From this reality." Irene said.

"Their temporal line suddenly turned into the nothingness, as if it popped into the impenetrable tunnel between worlds. I am not able to express it with words, and you cannot understand it. You would have to have my gift, Val. " She continued.

"There are only a few powers which can make my eyesight seeing the future so cloudy. I am sure that some powerful, very peculiar magic covers their fates."

"Magic?"

"Magic coming not from this world. The very same thing which covered the face of somebody who shot at that man in that night. Bullets appeared the same as these people disappeared... suddenly they were born from the nothingness, as if they appeared from the impenetrable tunnel between worlds. I am starting to understand the pattern between these events."

Val was worried more and more. Every new revelation was more terrifying than the previous.

"I must get in touch with my superiors. Every information is important now. Even so enigmatic." The woman headed towards the exit, but before opening the door she decided to ask about another thing.

"Irene, where are everyone from Freedom Force?"

"The majority is doing their own business. Raven is on the mission, Blob and Commando also. Ah... I do not have a clue, where Spiral is... but she is also protected by the powerful magic from the other world... " The older woman said.

"Spiral..." Val going out from the room. Maybe everything what happened was her prank? Perhaps Raven lost control of the most unsteady member of her team? And maybe Spiral carried Mystique's orders? The woman cursed the moment in which she decided to create the team consisting mutant criminals.

Spiral watched her newest work picking the shape up in the creative act. Dumb women surrounded the motionless body of the agent above whom diverse devices hung. Large medical robot looking like the steel spider, quickly built from rusting objects taken straight from some dump, hung above the bed and white smoke were emerging from holes in the floor. Other device, standing right behind the head of the dead man, was drilling a hole in his head and the woman in the white mask on her face was waiting besides holding the black box with colorfully flashing lights. Terrible treatments were a presentation of the technology Spiral had at her disposal not only for her alone, but also for the blonde girl keeping her company. The young nurse looked at all horrors, wanting to escape somewhere farthest and simultaneously not being able to make the smallest move. One of Spiral's aids removed the brain from agent's head, throwing it on the floor covered by the artificial fog. The girl wanted to scream, to hide or at least to close her eyes, but the control of six armed mutant was too strong.

"Replacing the organic brain with the electronic equivalent is straightforward. Nano-robots which are being produced in its interior will quickly replace the decaying nervous system, perhaps they will even manage to grab some fleeting, last memories. I will have next perfect helper, puppet, meat robot controlled by the black box."

"How will you stop the progressing process of the decomposition?" The fair-haired woman opened her mouth for the first time after crossing of thresholds of the Shoppe Body. She said something about which she hadn't thought, something which had filled her with even greater fear for her future fate. The place influenced the woman more and more, she felt less and less her own thoughts in her head but more and more whispers coming from the darkest corners of the white-haired woman's hiding place. Spiral smiled, pleased with the progressing process of the conversion.

"I am pleased that you are starting being interested in what is happening around you. Answering your question, I don't know whether I want to stop the process of his body's decomposition. Perhaps I will send him to works outside this beautiful place? There a stink of his decaying body will be not disturbing anybody. There he will be working until he disperses, the same as the steel construction eaten away by rust. And now come back to the work, after all I gave you the task to do." She said leaving the room.

Meanwhile, in other place, somewhere in the very centre of the United States the armored car, in which the strange device constructed by scientists from S.H.I.E.L.D. was going to be transported, was ready to go. Blob and Commando along with two young agents took place in one of car driving right behind the protected object. Additionally two cars with a few soldiers and vehicle transporting scientists were the rest of a convoy. Blob was looking through window at the quickly changing landscape, thinking about the way his friend intended to inform him about start of the protected device's theft. Commando was sitting opposite the fat man not saying a word to him. The atmosphere inside the vehicle was very heavy, it was apparent, that men could bear each other presence with a great effort. Two soldiers also weren't delighted with the company of mutants and everyone hoped that the common expedition would end as soon as possible. The convoy passed municipal buildings and the extensive suburbia welcoming the desert stretching out around. Fat man, listening intently to the monotonous motor noise and feeling the hot sun's rays on himself, slowly dozed off. At some point he was violently woken up by Frank.

"What do you want again! Must I hit your face?" Dukes asked.

"Something is happening. We stopped." The grey haired man replied.

"Really?" Blob asked guessing what it was about. The convoy ceased moving, because some man appeared on the road. Two soldiers came to him. They were armed, but he seemed completely not to be upset by it. As it turned out, it was mustachioed friend of Blob.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" The young S.H.I.E.L.D. agent screamed seeing the man in a long coat.

"I am walking. Am I not allowed?" The man with a big moustache replied. Two soldiers looked at themselves, they were embarrassed not knowing how to react. Commando emerged from the car in order to solve the matter with intrusive tramp as soon as possible.

"Come back!" He ordered the men.

"I will find out what it is all about and you must guard the equipment in case if it's going to be hot." He added.

The man with a big moustache smiled wryly.

"It already turned hot." He said pointing at the Sun mercilessly flooding surroundings with its heat.

"I don't feel like joking! Who are you?" Frank was furious. He looked all around nerbously.

"I am walking... I have the right for a moment of solitude. It is you who drove uninvited to my area." The man looked at the car with S.H.I.E.L.D. apparatus.

"What are you carrying there?" He asked.

"It is clandestine." Commando replied.

"Probably some nuke. You carry out tests in secret and at the same time you accuse others of working on uranium. You're a gang of hypocrites."

"Move away. You aren't pleased that we are here, we are also having no time for stops. Therefore it will be best to say goodbye now!"

"Okay, guys." The man with a big moustache announced moving a few steps into the desert, far enough to make a room for the convoy. Commando and agents came back to their vehicles gearing up for the travel. Unfortunately, they couldn't move even by one meter. The car carrying Blob stood in the place, in spite of strenuous attempts of the driver to set off on a journey.

"What is happening there!" Frank screamed.

"Are we stuck in sand, or what?"

In the same moment his eyes directed at the Blob. The bloated face of the fat man radiated with the smile. Commando remembered about abilities of his friend from the team.

"Dukes! Is it your prank! What are you doing?" He asked.

"I like it here. I'm not going to move!" Blob replied with contentment.

"What are you doing?"

"I want to wait a few minutes." The man sat more comfortably on the armchair. The older mutant took the handgun out putting it to Dukes' head. Two young soldiers reloaded rifles.

"Stop doing it, or else you will stay on this wilderness with the hole in the head." Commando said moving the weapon closer to the temple of the fat person. In the same moment the huge explosion shook the road before first car. A few agents were wounded by shrapnel, others ran out of vehicles with the readiness for the fight with still invisible opponents. Frank also jion them leaving Blob under the care of two soldiers.

"What is happening here?" He asked the first noticed man.

"I don't know! We were attacked! " The man answered. A moment of inattention was enough to be hit by a ray from the energy weapon.

"Hide!" Commando ordered hiding behind one of vehicles. When his eyesight got used to the smoke, he managed to catch sight of silhouettes of attacking people. Everyone had yellow A.I.M. uniforms on, they were armed and camouflaged.

"Damn it! They're A.I.M.! We must protect the cargo at all costs! Did you called the help!" He asked the young agent.

"No! The radio is out of order. They must be using some disrupting signal!"

"We must do it alone, soldier."

Blob deprived two guards of their consciousness with one strong move of the hand. He destroyed their weapon and then rolled from the vehicle. In front of his eyes a regular fight between soldiers and terrorists in strange, yellow dresses was going on. His acquaintance stood in the distance, giving him distinct signs with hands. The mutant decided to act. He came up to agents and his friend with Freedom Force defending themselves. Gunshot was heard and a moment later, two A.I.M. members fell down to the ground after being hit. Disorientated terrorists were convinced that their plan had failed. Blob hit men from S.H.I.E.L.D. effectively felling them to the ground. He caught third one, throwing him at the car with all his might. Commando could not believe his own eyes.

"Dukes, what the hell are you doing!" He asked.

"Get out of my way Frank, or else you will join them." The fat man replied.

"You have shown your real colors, fatso... but I won't give up so easily." The man took the knife out and moved towards Blob. Unfortunately, the huge mutant was too strong for him. He immobilized the Commando's shoulder forcing him to drop the knife. A.I.M. used the chance to attack next targets, including a few scientists protecting themselves in the armored car with the secret device. Dukes trounced his opponent pinning him to the ground with his own greasy bulk. Crimson tried to defend himself, to us his superhuman physical fitness, training and service from many years, but he wasn't able to oppose the huge mountain of fat and muscles crushing him with his mass. He gave up. Blob got hold of his head and pressed it into sand knocking older mutant unconscious. As it turned out, the fight was already ended. Terrorists from A.I.M were walking around and all S.H.I.E.L.D. agents as well as scientists lay on earth burnt with the Sun, hurt by the energy weapons or blows of Blob's iron fists. The mustachioed man came up to the fat person smiling to him.

"Good work, I congratulate you on the great choice." He said heading in the direction of the armored car. One of assailants dressed in yellow also came up to the fat man, simultaneously taking odd headgear off. As it turned out, he was the other old acquaintance of Blob which he had met earlier in the bar.

"We wouldn't do alone. If not for you... the one here..." He showed lying Commando.

"He could sweep the floor with us. He is as good as Captain America."

"No way... He's ordinary old fart." Dukes replied looking mockingly at his friend from the team.

"Boys... will you tell me what I was supposed to protect? " He asked. The man with a big moustache turned to him.

"We are pressed for time now. This car is in working order, right? We must use it as soon as possible and escape from here before the top guys guess that something's wrong. Our people are trying to mislead them sending false data that you are still moving in the direction of the training ground, but a short time will pass before they discover, that something's wrong. We don't know who will be send after us."

"Well. But you will explain me what is going on, okay?" Blob was interested what he had stolen and started to be distrustful of his old friends. Acquaintances of the fat mutant and one of camouflaged A.I.M. people entered the armored lorry. Blob fell behind, falling into a pensive mood. The man with a big moustache leaned out from the cab.

"Hurry up! Didn't you hear what I just said?"

"I'll be there right away." Dukes hushed him up in a word.

"What are you thinking about?"

Blob didn't say a word this time. He turned around, in the direction of lying Crimson Commando. He came up to the man, grasped his leg and pulling him he went towards the car.

"What the hell are you doing with him!" The man with a big moustache was furious.

"You started thinking of somebody whom you've just betrayed? Where such twinges of conscience are coming from?"

"Shut up. He's going with us." Blob growled pulling Commando almost up to the very wheels of the lorry. He picked him up from sand and threw him into the semitrailer, close to the strange device. Moment later, he clambered there himself and sat down on hard boards.

"We will have trouble because of you." The ginger man was very dissatisfied.

"Shut up and go already! You were in a hurry a moment ago!" Blob snapped out.

"He is going with us period." He added after a moment. The car drove, other members of A.I.M. also came back deep into the desert, where their own means of transport waited for them. Only wrecks of vehicles and defeated agents from one of the best anti-terrorist agencies in the world along with the group scientists who they were supposed to protect stayed silent on the sandy road.

Spiral was sitting on the balcony on one of towers adjoining to her Shoppe Body, looking at multicolored clouds moving in front of her eyes, natural for that bizarre place, lying between known and unknown dimensions. A strong wind was shaking her hair and strange sounds, having their sources a lot of kilometers lower, in the vast darkness of mountains crossing the unfathomable land, came to her ears. The woman waited patiently for the results of the analysis of nanotechnology destroying the body of her patient. This was the first task which she gave the woman who she had brought to her house and who was supposed to become her newest pupil. The blonde appeared on the balcony, keeping the black tile with gold shining symbols in the hand.

"Do you have some good news for me?" Spiral asked.

"I don't know if they are good for you. The work in your laboratory is sending shivers up my spine. The equipment seems to have its own awareness there."

"No, it certainly has its own awareness." Mutant woman corrected her statement.

"But you have another things to report. What did you learn about nanomachines destroying his body?"

"They originate in this place." The nurse replied coldly.

"What" Spiral looked in disbelief. She thought that perhaps her pupil had resisted protocols of the reconstruction of the personality and tried subconsciously to fight with her not carrying out an order. One deep look into her eyes convinced her that she was wrong. The woman obeyed her. Spiral took the plate to look at shocking revelations. Numbers written in the Mojoworld's alphabet left no doubt. Nano robots were created in her home. Spiral came back to the interior of the Shoppe Body.

"I must come back to the Earth. Mystique will start to suspect something and she certainly won't be happy that I took three people with myself. You have a leisure time. You can tour this place and look where you want." Spiral danced characteristically and disappeared in the blinding glow. The girl felt that her awareness, the ability for the thinking and the control over her own body had come back. Simultaneously she felt inconceivable fear when she realized what kind of situation she was in.

Somewhere in the middle of the desert, new residents appeared in little buildings vacated and forgotten by everyone a long time ago. A.I.M. members hiding from S.H.I.E.L.D. pursuers as well as Blob and his acquaintances found hideout there. After the action of the attack on the convoy carrying the component of the new weapon, everyone found shelter in the old military base wiped out by rust, sand and merciless sun's rays. Blob was walking about surroundings, kicking stones in sand and knocking elements of the old fence over. He dropped in to the barrack for a moment, where unconscious Commando, tied with ropes, lay and then he returned to the garage, where his two acquaintances and other scientists from the terrorist organization examined their newest, stolen treasure. He had contradictory emotions about the rightness of what he had done a few hours before. He opened the steel door of the hangar with one sweeping move of the fat hand and mutely entered the interior. He found terrorists dressed in yellow spinning around exactly the same as scientists from S.H.I.E.L.D. at the beginning of his mission. The redhead man ignored his appearance, but the man with a big moustache looked at his side noticing that Blob had a lot of questions.

"How I can help you, Dukes?" He asked.

"I want to know only one thing..."

"Yes?"

"What this damned thing is used for. And I want the reply which I will be able to understand."

"But of course. Didn't they tell you about it in the S.H.I.E.L.D.'s base?"

"No. I was supposed to keep an eye on it and nothing more."

"I'm not surprised. It isn't a trustworthy gang. " The man with a big moustache fell into a pensive mood and then said to the ginger.

"Chuck. Tell Fred what this rust heap does."

"Well." The man broke away from the analysis of the device and came up to the fat person.

"It is actually one large amplifier."

"What?"

"Amplifier. Increasing the powers of meta people. Everyone who has some power at his or her disposal, mutants in particular."

"Did they want to use it? Why? Did they want to build the undefeatable army?" Blob didn't understand what his friend had meant.

"Perhaps. Perhaps they wanted to prepare to some disastrous event. Who knows... but I have other theory. For me it is a tool of the execution. Think, homo superior, meta people destroyed through their own power, because of what separated them from the rest of the mankind and placed above it. Imagine X-Men or X-Factor crushed by their own powers. Cyclops killed by laser rays splitting his head up, Magneto ripped to shreds by the power of his own magnetism. In appropriate hands this wonder can destroy all teams of meta people in a few hours."

Blob looked at Chuck with a concern. The prospect of being killed by own fat not appealed to him too much.

"Think what we can achieve. Waking up the power in dormant metas and using them as living bombs. Feral Hulk, our private gamma bomb sent to Washington. Fueling hate between people and mutants by accidental attempted suicides with the X-Men participation. The world will tremble and A.I.M. will be victorious again."

"Don't forget about the fact that I'm also a mutant, asshole." Dukes replied angrily.

"Therefore you'll get the ticket to some exotic islands. A long way from the trouble, as you wanted." Chuck announced gladly.

"And what about Mystique, Destiny and all the team?"

"Do it concern you what will happen to them? I will pay you much better than Mystique."

"No." Blob said firmly. Redhead man sensed a danger and moved few steps back.

"This shit is too dangerous. I will wipe it out. Here and now." Dukes added.

"Do you want to destroy it after all you've done? What are you expecting? That they will make you a hero after you beat up agents and your own friend? You are exceptionally stupid, even for somebody, whose brain is poured by a fat."

"Chuck... stop talking gibberish and move away! Right now! I'm talking to you too!" Blob shouted at A.I.M. members and his second old friend.

"Do you think that you will defeat us? There are too many of us here. The energy weapon will fell the elephant down and you pig too!" The ginger reloaded his rifle. Blob was much faster. He ran up to Chuck, caught him with fat hands and a moment later pushed him into the device, destroying its electro-mechanical viscera. Something sparkled and the horrifying scream of the bearded man sounded around, paralyzing the remaining terrorists with a fear. The mustachioed friend of Blob escaped by rear exit, not even thinking about the attempt of the fight against the infuriated fat person. Dukes threw pieces of the scrap metal at the people from A.I.M. not paying heed that a few energy bullets from their rifles hit his body. Men were looking at each other, not knowing whether to escape or to try to fight. At one point, Crimson Commando ran into the garage knocking three terrorists down, with a few blows and kicks. They tried to aim at Blob's back.

"You deserve the neat kick on that fat, stinking ass, Dukes!" Commando said.

"First, let us smash up this place." Blob shouted.

The fight against A.I.M. lasted a few minutes, but the result was determined from the beginning. Disorientated terrorists weren't able to act in the closed compartment, and in addition many of them weren't armed because they were very busy with examining the complicated structure of stolen device a few minutes before. When everyone in yellow overalls were knocked over on the floor, Commando and Blob moved to the centre of the room.

"What's with them?" Blob asked.

"I can hear their hearts beating. They are battered, but alive. Except for this one." Frank replied pointing at Chuck's body protruding from the rust heap.

"He deserved it. He was nuts. He wanted to kill us." Blob spat towards the machinery.

"What have you done? You beat me and people from S.H.I.E.L.D., you stole the large piece of these scrap metal and gave it to the hand of thugs, then you helped me to free myself and you attacked them alone? What did you want to achieve? Did you want to show that you are a hero acting on his own? It is you who is a really nuts!"

"He really wanted to betray you and fly to these islands with the cash earned on this mission, Am I right?" The man with a big moustache came back to the garage. He stood calmly in the opened door smiling maliciously.

"You fucker, I will kick ass, you..." The Blob screamed in his direction.

"Wait." Frank replied trying tell Dukes to calm down. The figure of the mustachioed man started changing, assuming other shape and color. Mutants found the truth about the mysterious man. She turned out to be their boss from the team, Raven Darkholme.

"Mystique?" Blob was surprised very much. Commando also made no attempt to hide his surprise.

"It's time to finish this show." The woman said approaching both mutants.

"What are you doing here? Where is Lenny? Did you catch him?" Blob asked.

"Don't you know?"

"I tried to stop him, but during the fight he escaped somewhere. There was no time to chase him..."

"You understand nothing. Lenny is dead." Raven announced with a cool voice.

"I'm not going to cry over him. He was a human carrion. For money, he would kill his own mother, do you know what he wanted to do?" Dukes asked but Frank guessed what the woman had meant.

"You understand nothing. Lenny has been dead for a few years. He was drunk. He fought in some bar and somebody used a knife. He died on the spot. You are right Blob, he was a human carrion and his life ended the way he deserved."

The fat mutant scratched his head, but after a moment he understood what Mystique had said.

"It means that through all the time... it was you?" He asked surprised very much.

"Yes. From the very beginning. Starting from that phone, the meeting in the bar, when you helped A.I.M. hitting guards and Crimson Commando... I was there all the time."

"Was it some test? Did you want to check how I will behave? See if I do everything for money?"

Raven smiled seeing how her friend from the group started sweating. Blob had betrayed her and her team. He could get any punishment, particularly if he was far from the civilization and the only person who kept him company was faithful for blue skinned woman. Mystique looked at the destroyed device from under which the blood of the killed bearded man created the puddle under his body.

"No... I did not test you. I know very well that almost all Freedom Force are mercenaries working for who pays the bigger cash. I had very important mission to do and looking through IDs about the past of all of you I reached the conclusion that it would be the most easy with you. There were no chance for you to guess the trick as well as I knew that you would be the first who extend a hand for money. But let us already leave from here, because some uninvited guests can appear here right away.

"Yeah." Blob said.

"I can't hear no planes or helicopters. We still have a little time." Commando informed.

"Very well. We will take A.I.M. hovercraft." Raven smiled letting the Blob open the steel door before her. Three mutants entered the area of an abandoned military base. It turned out that it had got cold, because a night dawned above the desert. Mystique noticed the A.I.M. vehicle standing in the distance and told her friends to head in its direction.

"I wanted to make a confusion. I wanted to focus Val Cooper's attention on something new, give her the plenty of problems so that she wouldn't look at my hands when I was reaching my own goals. I found old contacts and I told rumors in certain communities about the new weapon produced by S.H.I.E.L.D. I was lucky, that one of your old fellows joined A.I.M. and I knew they certainly could not miss such a chance. As it turned out, S.H.I.E.L.D. indeed intended to test the new technology. Stabilization module for generators of the anti-gravity applied in Helicarriers. Really complicated, but certainly not threatening someone's life. The device was terribly expensive, scientists wanted absolutely to have a military protection or a homo superior's working for the government. I managed to convince Val to let Freedom Force guard this stabilizer. Scientists agreed and Cooper's superiors also. The device wasn't a weapon, so our group got the permission to be guards of the convoy. Then I just had to say A.I.M. where this scrap was supposed to appear, appoint somebody from the team suitable for this task and to offer him to return to the old gang planning the biggest jump of their life. Lenny was great for of this work.

"I was framed!" Blob said angrily.

"It is necessary to cure your stupidity." Frank announced.

"You attacked uniformed men, beat your own friend up, stole the equipment worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and you cooperated with the group of international terrorists, Blob. I should order to lock you up right after the return to the base."

The fat person was silent. He even lacked the courage to look at the woman. Commando entered the inside of the flying machine and tried to think how to use its instruments in the cockpit. Raven turned to Blob again.

" But at the end you demonstrated whose side on you would stand up, if matters in the world took a serious turn. And therefore I don't intend to take consequences out. The bearded man was telepath, it will be written in the report and Commando and a few people from S.H.I.E.L.D. will confirm it. You didn't control your own actions all the way up to the moment when you broke free from his grasp. The manslaughter and destroying the stabilizer will be explained by a frenzy after breaking from the mind control.

"Thank you." Blob replied.

"Remember that something like that won't repeat the second time. You will betray us once again you won't you live to see the process, did you understood?"

"Yes."

Commando cut in on the conversation.

"Why did you do it? What was all this confusion for ?"

"I must act so that S.H.I.E.L.D. and A.I.M. rush for each other throats. I'll be able to use the arising chaos and find what I'm searching for decades. Chance of better live for our race."

"Are you doing what Destiny foretold, am I right?" The grey haired man found the mysterious of his boss revelation interesting. Simultaneously he guessed how the flying device had worked and he turned its engines on. Soon, the machine rose above the desert plunged into darkness.

"Exactly. I want to fulfill a promise from many years ago and give her what she deserves. I must do it after so many years of our life together."

In the same time, the young nurse regained the consciousness and the ability to control her own body. The gift from Spiral proved to be the curse, because the girl was paralyzed by a fear seizing her mind. She looked all around, gazing at the corridors plunged in the semi-darkness and the unpleasant light of sodium lamps hung beneath the ceiling. She took a few steps towards some room, and then cautiously opened the door. Inside, it was as dark as in other places of the dreary building. The woman carefully eyed strange medical devices when her eyes got used to the darkness. For a moment, her attention was riveted by the column of the light incident from the ceiling in which dust and some two black insects danced. The blonde looked at the machinery and then terror seized her again. Devices seemed to sense her presence, to look at her with hidden eyes, waiting for her next move. The woman remembered that a few hours ago she knew very well how to use them, biological analyses which she didn't know how to name caused her no problems. She could not believe she was even able to touch something what seemed to her to originate in the very heart of the Hell. When something creaked in one of wardrobes and red eye with wires connected with the computer standing in a corner somewhere appeared on it, the girl couldn't endure. She shouted covering her mouth and run away from the laboratory. She walked quickly through long corridors, with rows of the door sticking in walls on both sides. She could hear bizarre, inhuman sounds coming from some rooms, but she didn't have a courage to look into any of them. She was sure that she would see inside them something far worse than the eye from the laboratory. She was worn out and her breath echoes from stone walls. She stood up, in order to rest, leaning against the wall. After a few minutes, she realized that she could still hear breathing although she was convinced that her organism had calmed down. She was right, since it turned out that it was walls that breathed. Rhythmical pulsing and the whistling sound caused that she had panicked again. She wanted to run, but in the same moment, women with faces covered by flat masks, all dressed in white coats barred her way. Strange figures without one word forced her to return to the building's interior. The girl started crying, closed her eyes and wanted the nightmare finally to end. She was on a balcony, where the ice-cold wind struck her. She fixed her eyes on purple clouds gliding above her head and the dark chasm awaiting below her feet. She knew that there was only one way in which she could finish her psychological suffering. She swallowed, preparing for the jump into the grasp of the death. Someone's iron fist caught her firmly, not letting her to end her life. As it turned out, it belonged to the agent or rather to automaton who rose from the dead body of the man after Spiral ordered to replace his brain with positron computer. Wire wrapping the face of the man held his eyes open and mouth in a wry smile. The biological robot carried the girl to one of dimwits rooms and locked her up. The blonde lay down on the floor, curled into the ball so that no stimuli from the outside world could reach her brain. She cried, although her eyes became dry and the mouth could not make the smallest sound.

Mystique came up to Destiny standing on the verandah flooded with blackness of the night and the moonlight. She embraced her and cuddled up to her head. Irene knew very well about her coming, but she pretended surprise, just to please her.

"I know, what you will tell me, but I want to hear it from you." The older woman said.

"I managed to do exactly what was described in one of your diaries. The step is first done."

"Raven, is it the best time? The situation with Val is becoming more and more serious. Tomorrow you will have an exceptionally bad day. The mutant protected by us disappeared. As well as some nurse. And Spiral."

"Nurse. You don't think that Spiral..."

"I don't know. I said many times, that I'm not able to see anything associated with this woman. She will always remain the uncharted territory for me. Just as everything regarding our terrorist and his would-be murderer. Too many unknowns, perhaps it will be better if you put action on hold until everything calms down."

"I cannot, this is the last chance. Too many black clouds gathered above us and soon we can lose the access to all resources we have now."

"Right... but if you are doing it for me, know that I won't forgive you if something bad happens to you."

"Be calm. I'm able to look after myself."

"I never doubted it."

Raven took the golden mask covering Irene's face, bent over the woman and kissed her.

10


End file.
